Morgan's Celesticon 2012 Adventures

Again, a new trend in gaming conventions: pre-registering for games before you show up.  I was able to pre-register for all the games I was interested in and I got into them all. Woo-hoo!  I didn't even use my GM priority slip.

The selection of RPG games at Celesticon seemed a bit slim, very few seemed interesting. This year Shannon opted to play multiple games of the Battlestar Galactica board game and only played in one RPG and ran his King Arthur Pendragon (RPG) game.

There were lots of board games and on a large table, someone was setting up Rick’s Scenics Presents Jurassic Park – The Game. A real kick-ass layout of Jurassic Park. The attention to detail was amazing.  They were even putting down tall grass for people and dinosaurs to hide in.

A project 65 million years in the making: Rick Schuldt presents his 28mm Jurassic Park miniatures game with all the spectacular terrain players have come to expect. Can you survive Chaos Theory and escape from an 18-foot table representing Isla Nublar alive? Hiding in the restroom is not going to work … and it’s also a good idea to avoid the Velociraptor paddock. Be very careful if you see torn down fences with red blinking lights. Are those big foot prints and why is the ground shaking? Did I mention that Spinosaurus eats just about anything? Terrain will include the helipad and interiors of the park control center, DNA embryo lab, maintenance garage, and power plant. Plus you’ll see special vehicles and lots of Rick’s dangerous jungle!

Wow, I would have loved to play in that game.  Run from the dinosaurs.  Hide in the restrooms.  Cool.

Celesticon is one of the few gaming conventions where you can get into almost any RPG game you want to play in. I always hear complaints about KublaCon and DundraCon and the enigmatic shuffler.

The downside is that games that should be full wind up less-than-full and some games are cancelled due to lack of players.

At the closing of the con, they have a raffle and they hand out lots of prizes.  I won 1989: Dawn of Freedom, a new 2012 boardgame. Retails for $65.  I also got won GURPS: Banestorm from Nathan Hanner's game.  Retails for $35.

This time I saw a pattern in the games I played in, so I'm going to focus on GM mistakes.

Minimum spoilers below about the games I was in.

I now hide spoilers with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the sections I have marked.

---

Sat 9am, Tom Vallejos's These Are The Voyages... (GURPS) 8 players.

Space travel in the Napoleonic Era! Join the crew of the USS ENTERPRISE, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... To boldly go into that newly acquired Interstellar Region known as the Louisiana Sector! Beginners Welcome! Knowledge of Early American History and the Napoleonic Era is NOT required, but it will help you understand in-jokes, ad-libs and other surprises. Prizes by Steve Jackson Games!

You know, I think this game is the inspiration for the Celesticon cover.  It's sort of 2-for-2 for me.  Last year, I played in the game that was the inspiration for that year's Celesticon program cover too.

We only had 5 players.  One was the GM's wife.  The conceit was interesting.  We were the Louis and Clark expedition, but instead of looking for the Northwest Passage in a canoe, we were in a Steampunk Spaceship looking for the Spinward Passage.  Instead of villages, we visited planets.  Since our Steampunk Spaceship was more like Space 1889 than the Enterprise we had to stop to resupply as we explored.

What made the game a lot of fun were the players. We did a lot of Star Trek jokes and White Men "discovering" and taking credit for whatever the natives had already known about.

In this instance, it was the players that made the game a lot of fun.

There were some GM mistakes that made this less than a stellar experience.  The GM mistake was what I call "It's so cool, I gotta railroad you to the cool bits."  Details in the spoiler section.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
At one point, we find an NPC had cloned himself with alien technology. He needed our help to stabilize the clones, otherwise they die in 100 days. One complicating factor was that we belonged to the US and he was French. Not only that, he was building an army that would be used to invade the US, so we had to stop him.

My solution was to clone ourselves so we would out number the NPC clones and then overwhelm the clones on the surface.

Well, the GM didn't like that and suddenly, there wasn't any goop to make clones with anymore, they had run out. And the NPC didn't have the formula for the goop.

If that was the case, then we didn't have a problem anymore. We just had to hole up for 100 days and leave the planet.

And if we had shown up 100 days later, there wouldn't have been a clone army at all. This all seemed so stupid and contrived.

Anyway, the whole reason there wasn't any goop left over was that the GM wanted us to explore the alien complex which we were in the basement of -- because it was so cool, I had to make you go up into the rest of the building, no matter what and not in a very subtle fashion.

Other issues I had was that the GM mumbled and disseminated a bit. I prefer GMs that speak loudly and clearly.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

---

Sat 4pm, Nathan Hanner's Wild Weird West: End of the line. (GURPS) 7 players.

The Wild West investigators have been accused of attempted assassination. Can your team of mad scientists, gun slingers, and monsters clear their names before the real assassin finishes the job?

I had a really good time in this game.  I played a Voodoo King who was the party's healer and nobody messed with me.  The game was mostly action and reaction.  There wasn't much of an investigation.  At the end, most of New Orleans was destroyed and we think the Bad Guy died, but who knows?

You know, we never did get accused of the the attempted assassination.  That plot point never really happened.  We actually caught the assassination in progress and stopped it.

The only minor GM mistake is what I call "I gotta make it exciting, so the impossible is going to happen.  So, ignore the man behind the curtain."  Details in the spoiler section.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
At the end, we were in the process of shooting down a blimp and though unpiloted (we had killed the pilot), it spiraled down onto our stationary train. This is pretty much impossible. But the GM wanted to make it exciting and wanted us to continue to shoot at the blimp.

We finally got our train moving and the flaming, exploding blimp crashed only on part of the train we sacrificed.

In another instance, one character was attacked repeatedly by shadow creatures. She survived long enough for us to arrive and save her, but I could tell the GM was holding back. I would have preferred that the creatures either killed her or knocked her unconscious, then the tension level would have been even higher.

What complicated the issue was that each round was a second or two and the GM didn't let us to get to her -- we were rushing up three flights of stairs, so her combat dragged on. But he wanted a daring rescue, so he should have just let us get to her in a round or two. It would have worked out better, but what happened was the GM let the rules get in the way and then he had to fudge his dice rolling so she would survive.

Look, if you're the GM and you're going to cheat in order to make it more exciting, cheat in places where people won't notice.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

---

Sun 10am, Richard Taylor's Bad Times at Dunwich High. (Monsterhearts) 4 players.

Players will take on the roles of the messed up teenagers of Dunwich. This game is pretty much a standard Monsterhearts game, just with a slight Lovecraftian twist as they learn the truth about their town and their history.

Characters will be created at the game.

Only 2 players showed up (which includes me)  -- a surprise because Rich said that at the first session had too many players and he had to turn some people away.  For a Player interaction game, having only two players really sucked.  Also Rich showed up late because his car had broken down and his promised ride bailed on him, so he had to arrange for another ride.  Anyway,  Rich dropped onto the table 9 "skins" or character templates and let me and the other player pick one character.  I was surprised by the variety of templates.  Once we picked a template, the other templates were taken off the table.

I picked "The (Hive) Queen" who's interaction is that she distrusts and fears another player.  Well, with 2 players, it has to be the other player.  The other player picked a "Hollow" which is a Frankenstein character who's socially inept.  Well, that kills a lot of character interaction.  We actually had to work to get the two PCs to interact.

One issue is that I wanted to interact with the other "skins."  Well, they were taken off the table and it was just the two PCs and various NPCs who didn't fit the templates.

I'm surprised that Monsterhearts only takes 2 to 4 players with one GM.  If I had a choice, it should be 8 players, all populating the High School.  Or at least the unpicked templates should hang around for us to interact with.

For some reason, I have problems with both Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts.  I've had pretty bad game experiences with both systems.  The sex moves seem like a gimmick and there's something wrong about playing high school kids who have underage sex.

I also had a stress-free high school, so playing high school angst just didn't do it for me.

GM mistake:  Not showing up on time (though not really his fault) and not removing the templates that reduced interactions between PCs.

---

Sun 9pm-3am.  Morgan Hua's Carnival Magic - A Haunted Cruise Ship. (Dread). 6 players.

The 130,000-ton Carnival Magic featured 1,845 staterooms plus 746 crew staterooms making her capacity at 6,000 passengers including crew.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_ Magic
http://www.carnival.com/cms/fun/ships/carnival_magic/default.aspx

The Magic vanished on November 2011 on route to the first season's Caribbean Voyage with all its passengers and crew. The area it disappeared in is known as the Bermuda Triangle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_Triangle

After a week of frantic air and satellite searches, the Magic re-appeared during a tropical storm. Generally storms in the Caribbean run from June to November and peak in mid-September. The Magic emerged with a mayday broadcast at Midnight local time. The storm is preventing any type of coordinated rescue effort.

The Mayday message contained some information kept from the public, but the circumstances of the Magic's disappearance raised enough of a concern that your elite investigative team will be helicoptered in. It was determined that though it is dangerous -- the whole team could be lost en-route during the storm which is turning into an unseasonal hurricane -- it is a necessary risk. The team was given necessary papers and briefed en-route to the Magic. You've been told that the standard communication equipment for contacting HQ may be unreliable in the storm. The helicopter will not return to it's point of origin having only enough fuel to get out of the raging storm and be ditched into the sea. The pilot will be picked up by a rescue ship.

Good luck and safe journey.

I was worried because my game ran from 9pm to 3am.  I made the mistake of not specifying any preferences.  I would have never guessed that games ran to 3am (or 4am for Bryan Hitchcock's game).  Holy smokes.  With the games not filling up, I was worried about not getting enough players.

After the Monsterhearts game, I had lots of hours to burn before my game.  I dropped by Matt Steele's A Murder of Crows and found that he only had 1 player.  I volunteered to play, but I would have had to leave at 9pm to run my game.  We chatted for an hour and no new players showed up.  2 players were too few for his scenario, so he cancelled the game.

The bright side was that Matt's game room had a wide-screen display and my game room, next door, didn't.  I was able to move my game into Matt's game room.  Matt with nothing to do, got on the waiting list for my game.  He was automatically in because Frank Figoni had pre-registered for my game and he had an auto accident and was unable to attend the convention.  I was actually going to play in Frank's game, Calling All Stations, This is Attu!, and was surprised that it was cancelled when I showed up Sat morning.  I had ran into Shannon later and he told me about Frank's accident.  Matt also gave me a heads up that he couldn't stay to the end but would have to leave at 2am.

I checked out the audio visual and found out that when I tried HDMI (I brought a HDMI cable), the display didn't work properly (display artifacts) and I couldn't pipe in sound to the TV.  The provided PC cable worked though, so I adjusted the sound volume on my laptop.

I set up at one end of the table, didn't like the setup, and then moved to the other end.  I double checked my notes and then waited to see if I got enough players.

To my relief, at 9pm, eleven people showed up for my game including all 5 pre-registered players (actually 4, the 5th showed up about 9:12pm).  One pre-registered man thought his wife was queued on a "waiting list."  They both wanted to play, but I had no extra openings, so he gave up his spot and we sent them next door to Bryan Hitchcock's game which was short of players.  A number of non-players asked if they could watch and there were no objections.  Two of the non-players (watchers) actually got to play -- but I'll get to that later.

Picture by Matt Steele

An hour and 45 minutes into the game the tower fell the first time.  The game ran the full 6 hours and we ended the game at 3:07am.  There were 3 instances of player vs player.  4 characters died.  We took minimal breaks, only long enough to rebuild the tower.  My main problem was that the last time I ran this game, we finished early.  This time, it went perfectly.  Even the ending was amazing.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
At the end, one of the characters, Steven Seagal, went crazy and started attacking Newt (from Aliens). Newt hit a radio detonator to blow a shaped charge that the party had planted earlier in the ship's stern.

Newt survived long enough for the rest of the party to arrive.

As the ship started to sink, Gary Oldman (hand gun) went after Steven Seagal (commando knife). After many draws, the tower was really unstable and the two characters called a truce and stopped pulling. The party rushed to the top of the ship and I made each player do a final pull to reach safety.

Everybody made it out except for Steven Seagal. He was the last to pull from the tower and the tower collapsed with his pull. So, he was trapped on the ship as it sunk.

A rescue helicopter came by and picked up the surviving team members. And that was how the game ended -- with one final tower collapse. Cool.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

After a "good" death, one of the players let one of his watching friends play.  His quote was, "It started with Horror, then it got Awesome." and he wanted to share the awesomeness with his buddy.

When another character died, the other watcher got swapped in too.

After Matt Steele had left at 2am, one of the swapped out players took over Matt Steele's Uma and wound up saving Newt at the very end.

One of the players told me, "This game made the whole Convention for me."

The next day, I ran into two of the players (separately), one was one of the watchers who only got to play part of the game, but he kept on thanking me and shaking my hand.  The other player also gushed over the game in front of the Celesticon staff.  Hey, maybe I can get the room with the big wide-screen display next time?  And can I have an end time at midnight?  It's been two days since the convention and I'm still suffering from the sleep deprivation.  (Yes, Matt, I really understand your 2am bedtime, but you missed the climatic ending. :-)

Matt inspired me; he said he would continue running his Cthulhuporn game until interest in it wavered.  He has run that game at DundraCon for several years and people still queue up to get into that game.  I was going to retire this game after Celesticon, but now I feel I should continue running it.

My GM mistakes:
1. One of the players started shinning a laser pointer at the blocks to distract another player.  I was wondering what was going on and didn't do anything about it.  Later, that same player started waving his hands in front of the other player, trying to distract him and making him collapse the tower.  What the heck?  I then called him on it and he stopped.  I should have stopped it earlier.  I actually thought they knew each other -- because he didn't do this to any of the other players.  Well, I spoke with the guy the next day and he told me he didn't know any of the other players.  Um, that's pretty immature.

2. I should always ask for a midnight ending time and access to a wide-screen TV (if available).

---

Sun 10am Michael Garcia's The Monday Edition.  (Don't Rest Your Head).  4 players.

You have spent this entire con fighting back sleep, not knowing what dangers lurk just beyond your half-lidded gaze. In the mirror the Eyeless Mother smiles at you. Her gaze is empty and black. Blink and she disappears, but she's never truly is gone.

At the bar, a dapper gentlemen calling himself Mr. Lived buys you a drink and seduces with fame, glory, and power. You are not sure what his game is, but you are so tempted to play.

These and many more are the denizens of the Mad City. They have come calling, hungry for your imagination, craving your dreams like a meth-head craves crank. If you falter they will have you and you will know a fate worse than death. However, if you press on, the world is yours to do with as you please.

Come and play a game where your exhaustion is a virtue, insomnia is empowerment, and your imagination gives you godlike power.

Mike runs two of the best Don't Rest Your Head games:  White Chapel Fiend and The Tower.

Seeing Mike run a Don't Rest Your Head game au naturale was going to be interesting.  From my experience Wilson Zorn is an expert at running Don't Rest Your Head au naturale.  I've played in other Don't Rest Your Head games and they tend to be Looney Tunes on acid without much depth.

Only 3 players showed up, but we were able to get a 4th player who showed up just after we created our characters.  We played created some stereotypical gamers:  CCG power gamer, LARP goddess, Newbie RPGer girlfriend, and a way overweight miniatures wargamer.  What was funny was that most of our characters were some sort of loser.  After we created our characters, Mike needed 30 minutes to come up with story arcs for all our characters, so we took a break.

Everybody's characters was pretty interesting and we all got our introductory scenes.

The game went pretty well, but the pacing was slow in some spots and I felt the game went a bit long.  At the end, we were just rolling handfuls of dice to beat the Big Badie.  That just lacked impact.

GM mistake:  "Everybody should resolve all their story arcs.  And I, as GM, should figure it out and do it all alone.  I am GOD."

I think Mike worked too hard to try to make and complete 4 separate story arcs. I think we could have just started without his 30 minute thinking-break.  We would have discovered the resolution to our own foibles organically.  I've run A Penny for My Thoughts multiple times and no matter what messed up beginnings we start with, we always wind up merging into one coherent story line.  It's natural to go that way.  Also it's an organic growth of collaboration between the Players and the GM.  With Mike trying to figure out the story arcs himself, in a vacuum, it's less organic and more forced.  As GM, he should write down his ideas and only apply them when appropriate.  Have confidence in your players.  You also run into the danger of the Players not cooperating with your grand plan.  Best to have possible destinations, but not a detailed map.  Everybody would be happier that way.